"We are now exploring the possibility to boost concrete support to the Somali army via the EU's train-and-equip initiative," said Italy's Brigadier General Antonio Maggi.

The five-year-old mission has trained roughly 4,000 Somali recruits and will instruct another 1,200 for the remainder of its mandate, which ends in December 2016.

Noting that the EU's train-and-equip initiative "is still only a concept at this stage" he said it would allow his mission "to properly equip the units we are training" and to refurbish the Somali military's infrastructure such as its hospital in Mogadishu.